Thank you

[CAPTCHAchacha]

I’m a guy (i.e. snips and snails and puppy dogs tails, as opposed to a shifting constellation of whatever), and I’ve been around mumsnet long enough to know that’s usually the wrong way to start a post, but I figure it’s relevant. I found my way to FWR earlier this year, and credit it with helping me make the escape from the fiendishly addictive but ultimately unsatisfying AIBU.

While this board wasn’t my introduction to trans issues, it was the first place that showed me why it might be a good idea to start paying attention. I’d never had to consider how women are being affected. Between you, Magdalen Berns, and the thousand links I’ve probably followed by now, I consider myself reasonably well informed.

After the latest epic thread (the one where I’d wager a certain someone probably climaxed to have gotten those particular last words in), I just wanted to say thanks to all those who put so much work into their posts, particularly when you can never be certain your contributions won’t disappear should the thread take a wrong turn.

“The real world will always frustrate you if you refuse to see it for what it is,” said the cat in the hat, and I couldn’t agree more.

You mean it wouldn't count as rape if it happened to an old lady who clearly wasn't at risk of pregnancy?

Oh dear. i'm not sure you understand any of this.

Rape is considered a different crime to sexual assault. One reason is risk of pregnancy. Have you never heard of rape as a war crime? Committed by men. Only men.

Please don't tell people rape is dependent on the age of the victim.

Actually there is a question of any object by either sex in either sex should count as a vile act. To me the question is does calling it rape help victims? And I mean all victims.

We would still have the basic fact that the vast majority of sexual offenders are male

Back to the OP

“The real world will always frustrate you if you refuse to see it for what it is,” said the cat in the hat, and I couldn’t agree more.

This thread is certainly giving Dr Seuss a ringing endorsement!

It’s an original tack you’re taking, positrans, I’ll give you that. On this thread you have intimated through your questions these premises:

“I think that feminists might want rape in marriage to be legal”
“I think that feminists might think that if an older woman is raped, because she can’t get pregnant, it’s not really rape”
“I think feminists must secretly really be anti abortion fundamentalists due to the personal beliefs of a barrister in a recent court case”

I don’t think you can really believe those things. They’re the opposite of feminism. And yet, here you are using them as gotchas. It’s not really a good faith engagement is it? Or if it is, I don’t think you’ve really spent much time thinking about what feminists want and do, have you?

These exchanges never cease to be illuminating Datun

To me the question is does calling it rape help victims? And I mean all victims.

In the short term it helps, but not in the long term.

The trouble with saying "I was sexually assaulted" is that could mean anything from being groped by a stranger on a train to being forcibly penetrated by anything that isn't a penis.

Which means a good chance of people whose suffering doesn't meet the legal standard of rape are dismissed as making a mountain out of a molehill.

For those people, it's useful to be able to use the more 'serious' term rape.

But the reason these women struggle to have their assaults taken seriously is because assault and harassment have been elided into one umbrella category, and the general public are inclined to hear "sexual assault" and think of something on the border between harassment and assault.

If the definition of rape expands - and it is doing so in common parlance whether we like it or not - the word will lose the seriousness of its current meaning, and future generations of women will find it less useful to describe their experiences.

This isn't just conjecture, I'm speaking from personal experience: when I reported the abuse I suffered as a child, the specific acts were legally not classed as rape but sexual assault; that changed a couple of years after the court case. So I have first-hand experience of how the reactions an admission of rape versus sexual assault differ.

I have started with your studies.

"From a meta-analysis of 51 peer-reviewed studies:

whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/%20what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people%20/ "

I have reached 12 of the first ones. Maybe one of the is maybe relevant to the UK children and teenaged transitioners today. (I allocated them numbers starting from the top left hand paper)

Studies 1, 3 & 8 are male only (so not really since 75% are female and I suspect this is much higher because many identifying as trans are not seeking treatment of any sort in my personal experience of this cohort)

-around half of these studies are out of date and not really reflective of current situation or treatment plans.
-study 5 looked at only older people
-study 7 had only 18 respondents
-study 9 looked at surgery only (so not pbs)
-study 10 may be interesting. Set in Australia ( females but what age?? doubt it relates in-depth to children and teens for the date of the study, but again 200 self selected. Looked at mental health, but it would be interesting to see doctors discuss what giving T to any female would do to mental health. I believe there is a uplift in mental health associated with T).

I will come back and do the rest. But I think I will concentrate on those after 2014 of which there is 8 and I have covered a few already. Why? Because we KNOW that the demographics of this current UK group of children and teens has changed significantly. It has also changed in other countries, but I am focused on here (the UK) and right NOW.

I don't think that this study does what you want it to in describing this group of children and teens. You have high expectations and making this review do a great deal of hard work for you.

However, as always, my comments generally relate to the mental health and other health aspects of children and teens and the medicalisation of this group as it is now. That is, it is a majority of females and many of them have comorbidities. And seeing the how many of them just among my own child's friends are identifying as trans, I would safely stand by my previous comment that you are not likely to share their experience except broadly.

This study does nothing to support an increase in mental health amongst this group.

I would take the current UK papers published by clinicians and the results from the gender clinic's own research to be more reliable and relevant.

@SophocIestheFox

It’s an original tack you’re taking, positrans, I’ll give you that. On this thread you have intimated through your questions these premises:

“I think that feminists might want rape in marriage to be legal”
“I think that feminists might think that if an older woman is raped, because she can’t get pregnant, it’s not really rape”
“I think feminists must secretly really be anti abortion fundamentalists due to the personal beliefs of a barrister in a recent court case”

I don’t think you can really believe those things. They’re the opposite of feminism. And yet, here you are using them as gotchas. It’s not really a good faith engagement is it? Or if it is, I don’t think you’ve really spent much time thinking about what feminists want and do, have you?

It's a form of argument that is useless in its persuasion. I will never understand it being deployed by anyone with the remotest intelligence.

It's on a par with feminists advocating for genocide.

Clearly nonsense and only serves to highlight ones's own lack of argument, coupled with instant alignment to an immature, 'no you are', credibility.

Waste of time as a premise. But useful for that to be shown, over and over.

Like plaiting fog 🙄

Tyroterf, thanks for your perspective. Most helpful

And again... females with experience and knowledge, personal and academic, are spending swathe of time responding to a man who just isn't prepared to take anything on board.

Many women have read and acknowledged a posters beliefs and explained why they disgree, with feelings and science. But that poster can't reciprocate. I'd ask why is that but we do know the answer... and it is quite heart breaking! I can't imagine myself having to twist reality so much to make me feel at home in my own body. But, if I may use the experience of friends, acquaintances and colleagues as illustration, I know enough trans people, gender fluid, male, female and as yet undecided, to know that there are many who accept that their body is one thing and their wished for persona is another. They manage to square that circle and don't deny their biology. They spend their time managing societal expectations and are honest enough to acknowledge that sometimes they cause distress... but they don't insist that those affected have no right to feel as they do! They are fully aware that they are the outlier, the individual that does not conform to societal expectations, whose biology does not match their external presentation and that it is through their own choices that this is so!

That doesn't diminish the upheaval their lived experience has caused them. It recognises it and gives us all a more solid and honest platform from which to try and build some honest accord!

TyroTerf

It’s on a par with feminists advocating for genocide

I think many of the more highly strung sections of the twitterverse already think “Feminists for Genocide” is already a thing 🙄

It really is a fatuous way to debate.

@SophocIestheFox

It’s an original tack you’re taking, positrans, I’ll give you that. On this thread you have intimated through your questions these premises:

“I think that feminists might want rape in marriage to be legal”
“I think that feminists might think that if an older woman is raped, because she can’t get pregnant, it’s not really rape”
“I think feminists must secretly really be anti abortion fundamentalists due to the personal beliefs of a barrister in a recent court case”

I don’t think you can really believe those things. They’re the opposite of feminism. And yet, here you are using them as gotchas. It’s not really a good faith engagement is it? Or if it is, I don’t think you’ve really spent much time thinking about what feminists want and do, have you?

I haven't intimated any of that and don't think that any of you think that. Nor, as a feminist, do I.

I do think that a lot of you assume that any trans woman by default has a sinister ulterior motive, hence your use of the word "intimated" and the narratives you construct about my motivations.

So. This 14 year old? How old are they now, and how old are you Positrans?

Thank you tyroterf for reminding me that none of this is an abstract debate for far too many of us

Oops! I should have added * after the "male, female and as yet undecided"

*using their own frame of reference, acknowledging their individual disphoria!

What’s wrong with the word “intimated”?

I will never understand why many trans women seem to care so little about what women need, want, and feel.

You flat out asked me if I thought that rape in marriage was ok until it was illegal. What answer did you expect? What did you hope to expose?

I find it fascinating the way these purported "gotchas" instead function more like a flashing neon sign saying "male socialisation- not an ounce of empathy with female experience and not the first clue what it is like as a woman to live with the ever present fear of male sexual violence."

Not. A. Clue.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Tyro

I do think that a lot of you assume that any trans woman by default has a sinister ulterior motive, hence your use of the word "intimated" and the narratives you construct about my motivations.

We don't have to assume. Why would we ? You've stated over and over.

Women are a constellation of something so that males can appropriate the word and have access to women's sex based facilities.

Woman isn't a word that defines a sex based concept and so it is decoupled from biology in order to make biology irrelevant. Then the rights which are based on biology can be based on stuff like shifting constellations instead.

I haven't intimated any of that and don't think that any of you think that. Nor, as a feminist, do I. But you have. You asked those questions, apparently in all seriousness. Why ask if you didn't think they were possibilities? Poor distraction technique, at best!

I do think that a lot of you assume that any trans woman by default has a sinister ulterior motive, hence your use of the word "intimated" and the narratives you construct about my motivations. Well, from my perspective any man who says "I believe I am a woman and therefore I am" is tramping over the opinions, feelings and lived experiences of every woman who hears him. Every woman HAS to wonder why any man acts as he does. In many circumstances it is what keeps us relatively safe from physical harm. Most of us learn that at a young age, often pre-puberty. From being hugged by male relatives, friends etc to being groped by our peers, leered at, pinned into small spaces, grabbed, kissed, tweaked, fingered and raped ... by men.

Basically you are asking every woman you ever meet to discard decades of personal experience and safeguarding in order to avoid make you feel uncomfortable. And you wonder why many of us say No!

It REALLY is that basic. The cohort of human beings that are male pose a sadly ever present threat to the cohort of female humans. And we, the female cohort, have every right to protect ourselves from that!

All this TRA crap has just added to the ever present fight against sexual assault and rape, the casual, every day shit as well as the worst. From chance meetings to the CPS not prosecuting, from entitled boyfriends to men like Weinstein, from passers by to men who lurk... it is an absolute travesty that any part of TWAW was ever accepted. It only harms women.

Fuck! That made me more angry than I realised!